Wondering how to make your busy medical practise function more smoothly? Here are several tips that might help:
Use Productivity Boosting Software
Medical practitioners can waste a lot of time on mindless yet time-consuming tasks like filling out prescription forms, sending patients reminders, paying bills and so on. Even if you pile these on to other staff, these minor tasks can take up so much time. To prevent time waste in this manner, invest in practice management software from a reliable company.
Management programs for clinics can automate most of the mundane tasks like sending reminders for filling out forms for pharmacies. It frees up time for all staff who can then spend their valuable time on more important ones. Not only that, programs can reduce human error and speed up the form filling process significantly.
Switch to Online Scheduling
Online scheduling can make running your clinic much simpler and smoother. Instead of wasting time taking phone calls, allow patients to book their appointments online, and then later choose to cancel or change them. It’s highly convenient and efficient for both the doctors and the patients. You might want to keep the telephone lines open for older patients though.
Collect Data and Analyse
A clinic, just like any other business, can only improve if you know what’s going on. To do that, gather data. You can track inflows and outflows to the clinic to understand overall patient flow, which days are the busiest and which are not, the most common diseases patients seek treatment for, and so on. Gather the data you need according to local privacy laws and crunch the numbers for valuable insights that can significantly improve productivity.
Stay in Touch with Your Staff with Tech
Good communication with your staff is essential for proper functioning of the clinic. Some doctors hold staff meetings in the mornings to coordinate everything. However, this can waste time and may not always be productive. It’s much better to use modern tech like teamwork apps to stay in touch with your staff throughout the day. Slack can be very useful in a clinic as it is in a corporate environment.
Learn to Delegate Tasks
Just because you are the doctor at the clinic, it doesn’t mean you have to handle every task. The MD should focus mainly on direct patient care and allocate time primarily for that. To do so, delegate any task that doesn’t require an MD to other staff to manage your time better. For example, hire an assistant to do things like return phone calls, take messages, or sort out scheduling conflicts.
Assistant staff can fill out non-medical forms as well. If it can be taken off your hands responsibly, do so. When you can properly delegate tasks, you would have a lot more time on your hands to treat patients and handle the actual medical care.
While a medical practise is something more than just a store, it is still a business. Proper management is essential for cutting back on time and resource waste. A smooth functioning clinic is convenient for doctors as well as patients. When patients can get their appointments without a hitch on time, then your clinic will definitely get better customer reviews.
